Horde
by Olhado
Summary: Chapter 8--amazing, since I rewrote this forty times or something. Rogue moroseness.
1. Darkness

Buried among withered trees and tufts of grass quivering on the edge of decay, in a landscape so barren, it appeared to be rooted in bone, there was a barracks. Of sorts. It had once been a castle, and although the mortar was rotting in parts and any engravings on the stone had long been worn away, it still held a certain ailing grandeur. That ailing grandeur was completely off set by the disheveled piles of wood that had been added onto it in the last few months--piles of wood that passed for adjoining halls or, more accurately, barracks. A greasy plume of smoke shuddered from a particularly run down portion of the add-ons. This was the mess hall. There were no windows, only a curtain that served as an excuse for a door and a large chink in the roof that served as a chimney.  
  
The regiment from the far north was entering the mess hall for the first time.  
  
Not so much among them as straggling in the back, was a thin young man, with skin greyed by deep pallor and red-brown hair that was badly frayed and tossled. What was most notable about him, though, was the swatch of stained white cloth bound tightly over his eyes.  
  
His name was Scott.  
  
He had a frame that would have supported strength and a firm face that might have housed a leader, but he had never been one to put himself forward and his blindness had made him shy. He kept to the shadows to the best of his abilities, one hand trailing in front of him, his body tense and alert.  
  
His palm brushed lightly against someone's back, who grunted in some sort of indigation. "Excuse me?" he said quietly, withdrawing his hand slightly, "This is where I'm supposed to be, right? To eat?" He knew the man (the grunt had been male) was probably looking him over, taking a certain pity (it was always pity, of course). "Yeah. Just keep walking straight." Scott nodded his thanks and moved when he heard others move, placing his steps with caution, as his still adolescent muscles tended to do awkward things sometimes. He had always been a bit clumsy.  
  
The line moved fairly quickly and in a matter of moments he was before the wafting heat of what had to be a cauldron. He heard something splatter and a large, calloused hand firmly took his wrist and shoved a dry-grimed bowl against his palm. Scott grabbed it quickly, pulled away from the server, and retreated to the wall.  
  
The hall was filled with the whispers, guffaws, and chatters of thousands. Scott was utterly alone, but he'd expected that. Sighing, he leaned back against the shadowed wall, gripping the bowl close to him.  
  
Something caught his attention. Among the greyed-out red that was his "vision," there was a darker movement and a sense of eyes. Someone was looking at him in a decidedly odd manner and somehow he could see it. The look was green, almost a yellow-green, and female--there was something about the darkness around it that was female. Scott tilted his head to return the stare, intent despite his unease. It was the most he'd been able to see in years and he wasn't about to be frightened off.  
  
The green suddenly seemed to grin, and her eyes were not on him, but deflected. There was a sense of yellow, but more washed out then the green, and not smiling. Then, with smooth grace, the green was there and firm upon him again. There was a sense of movement--she was walking directly toward him. Scott clutched the bowl tightly, muscles rigid with apprehension. He couldn't be sure of her intentions . . . let alone if she was even real.  
  
As the green drew closer, he pressed unconsciously back into the wall, not that it would do any good. The green stopped a few feet in front of him, and he felt the wind of her arms as they folded firmly across her chest. She took an audible breath before "You're drawing stares, standing over here all by yourself. You got a disease or something?"  
  
"I'm blind," he responded tersely, annoyed that she was ignoring the obvious, and edged to one side. "I'm not about to go bumbling through the tables."  
  
"You're a mutant, too, if that thing on your shoulder means anything," The green's arms whipped wind again and Scott was aware that she had pressed her hands on either side of his head. "Not that there's anything wrong with that. My name's Jean. And you're . . . "  
  
"Scott." His thoughts had wandered to the the branded mark on his bare shoulder at her "mutant" observation. No one had bothered to mention that in a long time, and it un-nerved him. A lot of things about this girl un- nerved him.  
  
The green flashed. "Scott, not much of a name. I mean, it's just one syllable. Scott."  
  
Scott smiled slightly, the brand slipping out of his mind as quickly as it had entered. There was an attractiveness to this Jean that he was hardly immune to, even if she was just a vague splash of color in his mind. "And I suppose Jean is better?"  
  
Jean laughed. It was a deep laugh, rich and almost exotic, "Not in the slightest." The greeness that was her eyes intensified and Scott found himself slowly getting lost in it . . .  
  
In the far corner of his mind, he heard an enraged bellow. His thoughts abruptly flared into focus as Jean collapsed to the floor, felled by a strong blow that echoed against a firmness, like a back. There was a hard wind and a gasp from Jean and the greeness flickered at him again, although disfocused. Behind the green was a grey, a wide blue grey that was female as well, but different. Her voice was lower and harsher and was discordant with the thoughtfulness in that grey.  
  
"Are you crazy? You wanna alienate him a little more, do you?" There was a weight to the voice and the grey that slipped itself over the green and was sympathetic rather than seductive. "She doesn't mean it--not really. Jean hasn't learned basic sense yet." Scott supposed he looked as confused as he felt, but the grey growled something inaudible at Jean and seemed to now ignore him to all extents and purposes. Jean dropped back to the floor with a low thump. Another, more muffled thump, as the grey completely overpowered the green, knocked her over. Scott was unable to act, even had he been able to tell what was going on. The grey's contralto was quivering with rage, "Leave it alone for once. He might need us."  
  
The grey flashed strongly in his mind one last time, then there were retreating footsteps as she stalked off back toward wherever she had come from. Scott gaped, his brain wierdly lax and foggy and the almost incomprehensible colors that had no place in a brain long infused with black and red weren't helping either. Jean was grunting and shifting below him and Scott finally managed to look concerned, although he wasn't sure he was supposed to.  
  
Jean snorted, her green not quite focused on him. "That's Rogue. Odd duck, huh? But . . . um, I really didn't mean anything by it."  
  
"What?" Scott muttered, rubbing his straggled bangs.  
  
"Oh, eh . . . you're a mutant reject, too, of course." It was more of a question than a statement and Scott nodded slowly. "Yeah, well, Emperor Kelly, he likes their mutants a little predictable, but . . . " She lowered her voice, "I can make people do stuff. Anything I want."  
  
Scott instinctively tried to back away again, but he was already against the wall. Jean laughed, "Oh, come on, I wouldn't have made you do anything bad. Maybe dance a little . . . no, no, I'm kidding! Rogue was just afraid that's what I was gonna do. I wouldn't have made you do anything--I just wanted to see if you could resist me. Mutants are a funny bunch, especially those no one wants to hire and . . . well, anyway, sorry."  
  
"It's all right," Scott said, without much conviction. Jean spoke a little too fast for him and she had just put him in a trance without so much as a by-your-leave.  
  
"Would you come sit with us?" she added quickly, suddenly upright and Scott had a sudden sense of her jutting out. The green was now almost pleading, almost childlike. Scott found his own eyes widening, behind the cloth and the tightly shut eyelids, and although the lonely emotions flicking through his blood seemed to be his own, he was quietly afraid he was being manipulated again.  
  
But Jean let her breath rush out in frustration before he could say anything, "I guess you don't. I really am sorry, really." She took a single step back slowly as if she was about to leave, but she lingered right there, uncertain, waiting for him to respond.  
  
An internal voice decided this was the time to inform Scott that Jean was the sort Scott ought to stay away from. If she was a normal human, there would have been no particular trouble, but mutant cast offs hanging together in an exclusive clump would draw suspicion from the higher-ups, which was a thing to avoid. This was even forgetting the fact that Jean was not even a normal mutant (not that Scott was, but anyway) and could do things to people on a whim and seemed to enjoy it. Scott didn't like being messed with and he didn't trust Jean at all. Then again, the green that was her was smiling a little at the moment and the rich, live color was intoxicating, and . . . yes, attractive again. It was even almost like seeing, which he missed terribly.  
  
He was overcome. But his tone was cynical, as he explained that he didn't have much choice--a lone mutant reject was maybe in as much danger as a suspicious coven, if not more, and his blindness didn't help and she'd already approached him and he would be connected anyway and considered a spy or something and on and on.  
  
Jean did not seem to be impatient or insulted by his rambling speech and by the end of it, had firmly taken his hand. Scott stared stupidly darkly down at it for a moment before Jean pulled him around to face the chatter of the mess hall. The black redness meant nothing to him, of course, but in the corner of his eye, there was a streak of yellow and grey . . . and he supposed those were the other mutants. The noise slackened off and the air practically hummed with anticipation.  
  
"Listen, unenlightened masses! All hail the new cast-off, the new bit of flotsam, the next particle of dust stuck in your boot soles, Scott!" A glob of grub splattered on Scott's left cheek as the unenlightened masses expressed their opinion. Jean chuckled as he ruefully wiped his off, his shoulders sagging, "I think you'll fit right in. Come on, you're one of us now." Gee whilikers, he was thrilled. She gripped Scott's wrist harder and led him toward her rather-too-private bench with the streaks of color. Just short of it, she let go of his wrist and pressed down on his shoulder, signalling him to wait. Well, fine.  
  
There were some exchanged whispers and the grey suddenly focused hard on him.  
  
"What's he doing here, Jean? You didn't . . ."  
  
"Rogue, he wanted to come. I can't refuse him if he actually wants to associate with us, can I? And after all, you said . . ."  
  
Rogue growled, and her fists slammed the table. "Jean, you're a manipulative witch . . ." She let the rage out in a sigh, "But if he's really come of his own accord, I guess it's all right." Scott heard her shift and rise, the grey growing stronger and kinder. "I guess you can sit down, then."  
  
Jean jerked him down to the seat and he banged his knee before managing to sling his legs over the bench. He hadn't quite gotten situated when Jean suddenly slapped her forehead loudly and muttered a curse. Scott realized that the lurid yellow that had flamed next to Jean was no longer there.  
  
"Kurt." Jean spat the word, her green narrowing.  
  
"Kurt's here."  
  
The green glanced in a neutral direction and snarled, "Whatever you're doing, cut it out and get over here."  
  
The space next to Scott exploded with sound, nearly knocking him over. Smoke putrid enough to choke billowed against his face and, despite his best efforts to hold his breath, set him into a racked coughing fit. It was a long moment before he could breath well enough again to turn his head toward the explosion. There was the yellow. There was Kurt. He was very small, barely took up any room on the bench. He made a darker impression against Scott's mind than the other two. Scott heard him slip behind him as the yellow vanished, which bothered him more than he would like to admit. He spun around on the bench, tense with distrust. The yellow bored into him--there was a sense of fangs. Scott swallowed hard, but did not turn away. Kurt's voice was smooth and utterly indifferent. "He'll do."  
  
Scott raised an eyebrow. "I'll do?" He jerked his head toward Jean again, "Were you all disturbed as children?"  
  
Jean snapped at the yellow, ignoring Scott's comment. "Kurt! We don't need you to initiate him. What are you trying to do, drive the kid off?"  
  
There was a shrug in Kurt's inflection. "I didn't, did I?" Casually, he leaned against the table, making it creak. Scott edged closer to Jean, who was practically seething with rage.  
  
Scott wasn't sure if the tension in the air between Jean and Kurt was genuine and didn't particularly care. Let them have their spat--as long as it didn't involve his poor un-talented body being tested by any more wild forces. However, the tension dissapated within seconds as both green and yellow appeared to simply lose interest. Rogue's grey was upon him and the look was wry. Scott found himself gravitating to her relative . . . normality.  
  
Rogue's grey eyes had to be the smouldering kind, but a little of the spark drained out of them as she leaned forward. "Moody. Bitter. Short attention span," she said in an amused undertone, "Rather disparate paths they've taken, nonetheless. Jean was, at one point, a noble. Kurt is my . . . well, sibling. He's not quite human," she hissed so quietly he could barely hear her, "Not real happy about losing the mutant position to . . ." She broke off in a chuckle, and he heard her ease back on the bench before raising her voice. "So, Scott . . . what sort of mutant are you?"  
  
"I see things," he lied flatly, hoping Jean wasn't able to read his mind as well. "Images, really. Kinda nonsensical at that. Oh, they all make sense after the traumatic event of doom, but it's not much use then."  
  
"Rogue's an energy vampire," Jean cut in, with a none-too-friendly sneer, "I wouldn't get too close, if I were you."  
  
Rogue's grey smiled and there was an attractiveness about her, too. "No emperor with any sense would take me, sadly," she said, "They feel rather . . . threatened by a person with my prescense."  
  
"What they're afraid of," Jean amended, "is that they'll phrase a request wrong and she'll eat their life force and rip their heads off."  
  
"Nonetheless," Rogue continued, as if Jean hadn't said a thing, "I, and you, at least, are proper mutants. Jean is some kind of crazed hypnotist telekinetic whatnot and Kurt . . . makes messes."  
  
"It's called a teleport."  
  
"Grand, Kurt, just grand. I would have hated to have forgotten."  
  
A clanging sound echoed through the hall and Scott jumped to his feet, only barely catching a backward stumble with his heels. "What's that?" He hated loud noises and was near panic, his head jerking back and forth.  
  
Jean sighed in mock resignation and grabbed the crook of his elbow, "You haven't been here long, have you? Follow us."  
  
Scott paced Jean cautiously out of the mess hall and down a long corridor, jostled by a constant flow of limbs and bodies. Finally, after a blind, bone jarring traverse through that endless hall, Scott and his companions broke out into the light, which flared red behind his eyelids. Jean described in a hurried whisper a sod field, set up with various rough mannikins on poles. Scott listened dumbly for a moment, slightly overwhelmed, before the crowd shuffled him violently away from Jean and into yet another series of lines. Trapped between close, sweaty forms, rushing in ranks and files, he was suddenly thrown a long, sharpened stick which he barely caught. The force unbalanced him and he nearly toppled, despite the mass at his back, but Rogue's grey abruptly reached from an adjoining line and caught him from behind, muttering, "Practice. You have to learn how to use these things before going out to kill people with them. Ah, reject mutants. No social or legal status to speak of. We're entry level, my boy!"  
  
They separated then, their respective lines shifting further. Scott found his palms slick on the wood he clutched nervously. He had never been much of a fighter, although he was entirely too experienced at the art of being almost obliterated by fellows of that qualification. So...he had been enlisted to do worse to the so named enemy than had ever been done to him, right? Sounded like fun...  
  
The lines moved quicker than Scott expected and even as he finished his thought, the person in front of him had sprinted forward and skewered one of those heavily stuffed mannikins with the muffled squelch of pierced cloth. Ouch. Someone nudged him hard from behind. Gulping, he positioned his stick and ran, leaping into his sprint at the end, effectively burying his weapon deep in the grass. Someone with gauntlets grabbed him by the shoulder and flung him and his stick back toward the line, with a loudly annoyed grumble. Well, sheesh, he hadn't asked to be enlisted either.  
  
Scott wandered aimlessly for a while until someone finally directed him to the back. He was not releshing an entire day of this...  
  
After what seemed like hours (because it was) the obnoxious bell sounded again and the mixed people that made up the underhorde began to file out of the courtyard. Scott, stunned by the sudden mass movement, looked desperately about for the flashes of color that meant mutants. He was already terribly lost, and nearly collided with Rogue, standing abnormally stock-still against the wave of people. "What are you doing?" Scott gasped out and Rogue described to him the southern sky. Smoke billowed over the horizon and there was the flash of flame.  
  
In short, she finished, taking his arm with a leather gloved hand before he could remember that she was an energy vampire, somewhere, not terribly far away, a settlement was being incinerated off the face of the land.  
  
Forboding clawed at Scott's ribs and he wondered, for the first time, what exactly he was up against. He hadn't expected to survive in any case, which had sort of smothered his curiousity, but really--what sort of army could cause a bonfire that large, large enough to be seen from the Keep? Then his thought shattered as a harshly propelled stick prodded him and Rogue toward the waiting hallway. After being ushered indoors and catching his breath, Scott finally asked, "Where are we supposed to go now?"  
  
Rogue replied distantly, "The bunk house. I'll help you find a place to sleep when we get there."  
  
"No dinner, then, I suppose."  
  
Rogue didn't answer. Scott was puzzled and strangely hurt by her silence, but said nothing more.  
  
There was a series of odd twists and turns which Scott tried vainly to remember, should he have to find his way alone. Finally, at the end of a particularly long hall, Rogue reached forward and swung a door open. Her grip tightened as they manuvered through the room itself, Scott banging his shins on several beds no matter how carefully Rogue directed. Finally, they stopped. "Better take a lower one. Walk straight ahead and keep your head down--don't want to brain yourself on one of the higher ones. Go ahead. I promise they aren't saved." This last was said with a hint of sharpness that made Daer smile, if only slightly.  
  
He hesitated for a moment, then shuffled forward, ducking his head and his entire body and feeling for the hint of a mattress. He found it without too much difficulty and slipped carefully onto it. Rogue swung her entire length of bone and muscle on the highest bunk in the row with a very heavy series of creaks. From the mutters overhead, Scott figured that Jean and Kurt were here as well and wondered just how many bunks were stacked on top of each other and whether the whole thing was bound to come down on him in the middle of the night. "Quite the horde, isn't it?" he said, for the sake of conversation and to keep his mind off of possibly being squished.  
  
Jean laughed, which she apparently did often, "You haven't seen the half of it. They need ten of these to hold us all and if you haven't noticed yet, we only get one meal a day, the frugal rotters. There's only one mess hall and it takes a whole day of rotations to get us all fed, even in such meager quantities. You see, we're just insignificant specks in this vast mace of a . . . whatever."  
  
"And this flippant army of specks needs to realize the danger we're facing," grated Rogue darkly, "That is not an army of rabbits out there. That . . . my friends, is Magneto. Didn't you see the fire in the south? You think mere humans can march right through our battlements like that?"  
  
Scott caught an unusual strain in Rogue's voice as she continued, "They're engulfing the land and burning as they go, burning human settlements as well as war structure, I'd wager. What do they care about humans-- according to them, as you'd know if you spent less time scrabbling in your ambition and more time actually watching, humans are inherently weak to them, even evil. A plague. What do you think they'll do to the mutants chained to those humans, huh? They'll kill us without a thought, given half a chance. As traitors."  
  
Kurt's oiled voice drifted up with, "We're southern, aren't we, Rogue?" There was something cruel in his tone which didn't seem to fit . . . not that Kurt seemed to fit period.  
  
"Yes." Her voice broke off briskly.  
  
"What about Gallant Scott?" asked Jean, half snide, half possibly concerned.  
  
"I'm not southern. I'm from far north, actually. My . . . adoptive parents had some connections with Kelly."  
  
"Well, how banal. I was hoping for another impassioned speech about Magneto's atrocities . . . "  
  
Rogue growled and Jean shut up rather more abruptly than Scott would have expected.  
  
"We're going to die, aren't we?"  
  
Kurt's voice was suddenly very vulnerable.  
  
"You are going to die," something snarled that was not Kurt or Jean or Rogue and certainly not Scott, but familiar all the same. "You're on the front line, you idiots--the Mutant doesn't like competitors."  
  
"Crap," Scott muttered to himself, and turned toward the wall.  
  
But the snarler had already spotted him. "Well, well, well. Who would have thought little Scott would go for the mutant position? Didn't think he had the guts, even if he's got the freak part down." Scott felt something brush his jaw and immediately got to all fours and scooted to the end of the bunk, hoping his expression conveyed the glare he was not able to give.  
  
That tormentor was from Scott's old town, probably a volunteer enlister, and Scott had known him for a long time--long before he'd lost his sight. He was a well built, blond kid with a dull, meatish expression that was belied by his educated barbs and cunning brawling skills--although Scott had occasionally won, when he could see. He was snickering at Scott's reaction and many other voices echoed him. "Do you remember Duncan, then? Apparently all too well."  
  
Scott clenched his fists in warning and said nothing. Duncan laughed again, his weight settling on the other end of Scott's bunk. "Don't want to discuss old times? But really, I'm quite curious as to why you're here at all. Finally ready to die, maybe? Miss your mum and dad that much?"  
  
"Get off," Scott hissed, raising his fists and hoping Duncan would just back off for once.  
  
"Can you make me?"  
  
"No. But get off."  
  
"Ooooh, I love verbal backbone. Wanna spar, you weak-blooded cripple?"  
  
"Get off." This was not Scott--this voice ripped with menace and barely subdued violence. Scott was rather jittered by it and it wasn't even directed at him.  
  
Something thumped to his side and Rogue was there. The grey was tinged with a livid yellow, like Kurt's, and there was something of the ancient werewolf in her breathing growl.  
  
Duncan's laugh sounded a little hollow and no one else took it up this time.  
  
"Get off."  
  
"I'd rather not," Duncan said with a certain primness, having apparently found his nerve, "Besides, you're not helping the cripple by playing attack dog. What's he gonna do when you aren't around?" Scott was trying to fold himself into an inconsequential ball. It wasn't as though he was all so afraid of Duncan, but he couldn't be terribly combative and Rogue like this scared him.  
  
He had some reason to be scared. Rogue let out a roar which sent dust cascading onto his head and Scott guessed she had picked up Duncan by the front of the tunic or something by the sudden relieved heave of the mattress and a whining gasp from that Duncan.  
  
"I said, get off. Two words, not open for discussion. Goodbye." She heaved the boy bodily onto a bunk across the corridor, which cracked. There was the sound of rat-like scrabbling, Duncan probably trying to keep himself from sliding over the other side of the mattress. The scrabbling turned into a long stream of curses, which drew a few very human chuckles.  
  
Duncan finally lost his grip and smashed into the floor and the hall exploded with laughter. Scott heard his old enemy's ascending howl of various obsenities and insults against various anonomous mothers with a certain "uncharitable" satisfaction. He heard Rogue stalk back to her bunk and creak loudly on top of it before Duncan had regained enough composure to venture at all closely to the mutant sector of the hall. Even then, he wouldn't come within Rogue's reach. He merely shuffled at the edge and yelled, "If I ever catch you alone, Scott, without your fellow freaks, there won't be enough of you to scrape off the floor. You have my word on that." He was gone then, probably to soothe his broken dignity.  
  
Jean snapped, "Who does he think he is? Emperor Kelly? I've seen dogs with more sense of authority. And that's all he is. A dog trying to be an alpha wolf. You could take him, Scott, alone. I'm surprised you haven't already, if you've known him long at all."  
  
Scott was finally able to turn toward the wall, "I have. Many times. But he's seldom alone. And he fights better than I do." He didn't feel like reminding Jean yet again that he couldn't hit what he couldn't see.  
  
Rogue broke in, sounding immensely pleased with herself, but under it all, still sympathetic. "I understand. But he and his kind can't attack you if you're not alone. Stay with us."  
  
Scott was unable to help the smile spreading over his face. "Stay with us" was one thing that nobody had ever said to him in his entire experience, even his parents. For the first time in his life, Scott felt he had an ally. Maybe even two.  
  
Lot of good it would do him, but the thought was nice. 


	2. Water

Had it been days, months? Scott wasn't certain. All he could remember was an endless routine of rough combat with sticks and renewed bruises, plus those dubious slopped meals. Exhaustion had mingled with every heartbeat, he no longer spoke to the other mutants at night. The hard mattress had swallowed him at first contact for the last few eternities. But today, as the terrible cry of the bell jarred him into consciousness, he sensed something different in the air. An . . . apprehension.  
  
Jean eased out of the bunk over him, her legs impacting almost soundlessly with the floor. Her greeness was mocking. "Come on, get up. What? You can't take the hours already? You've only been here a week."  
  
Scott groaned as he awkwardly rolled off the mattress, "You have got to be kidding. My body is one endless hurt and you say this has only been a week?"  
  
"Oh why, oh why can't you be more like Kurt? Never complains, always up before dawn. What a wonderful man he is . . . or thing, whatever."  
  
Scott straightened and allowed Jean to lead him out into the morning practice area, trailed by Rogue's strongly measured footsteps. Kurt had vanished, but he was an early riser after all and often wandered off alone. Considering he could be halfway across the Keep in an instant, it was generally pretty useless to attempt finding him anyway . . .  
  
The first thing Jean noticed (and thus described to Scott) was the complete absence of practice equipment (hurrah!). The close second was the line of Empire elite stretched across the field in glittering formation. Jean stiffened next to him as she spoke and Rogue let out a low grunt, almost satisfied, but edged with something like fear.  
  
Jean continued to narrate what was going on. Apparently, the man in the center of the Empire line was removing his helmet, only to reveal a distinctly bland face with spectacles, no less. A modest circlet of silver was the only object adorning his head, but, as Jean had been a noble, she was quickly able to surmise that this flaccid looking man was somehow of very high rank. She quietened as that flaccid man began to speak.  
  
"Brave soldiers," he cried, and it was almost impressive, despite the reediness of his voice. "I am Emperor Kelly." Cheers rose from every side, although surely the majority of these people had never seen the man before. Scott certainly hadn't. In a backwash settlement like his, the emperor and his Empire were somewhat substantial and important as the clouds overhead, unless they felt like drafting him. Drat them.  
  
"You have trained hard," the emperor continued, "And the Empire honors you for it, brave soldiers." More cheers. Scott was not impressed. This was fluff. Scott suspected that an identical speech had been given to the enemy troops by their commanders, replacing nations of course. He found himself devising a better one, laced with information that would help soldiers know enough about what they were fighting for to allow for efficient individual decisions . . .  
  
"And now, brave soldiers, you are called forth to battle. Your destinies are within reach." Now he's being poetic. And lightly skipping over the fact that most of these destinies are fatal. However, even as the cynical voice within Scott berated the very shallowness of the words, another part of him rose with andrenaline. It was not so much as he felt suddenly patriotic, but rather that he kept oddly putting himself in Kelly's place and there was the crowd out before him, listening, and . . .  
  
"We fight a foul barbarian race, called the Mutants. They burn as they go. Many southern farms have fallen under their flame. They will pay for those farms with their blood. We will beat them back over their mountains!" The andrenaline chilled . . . reality returned. He was blind and a mutant at that and although he was in the ranks, he had no real place here. Why couldn't the enemies have been the Unicorn Lovers or something else completely unconnected to him? This was just producing annoying internal conflict in his psyche . . . Jean nudged him hard.  
  
"Someone's coming out behind Kelly. I'll bet you anything it's the Mutant."  
  
"My people! There are indeed mutants among us, few, but they do exist. As you have heard, I have chosen one for my advisor--he knows how the enemy thinks and has pledged to help us. This is our Mutant--this is the Spike!"  
  
"Can you belive that? Spike? Who would be pretentious and juvenile enough to give themselves a code name--uh, no offense, Rogue."  
  
Scott paid little attention. The chill was growing worse and he couldn't even amuse himself with the Unicorn Lovers any more.  
  
"We march today! We march now!" The cheers were deafening as the mass of people boiled into ranks and columns, but Scott felt sick and cold. This was, in a sense, no better than what Magneto was doing. Magneto might have killed, yes, but Kelly spoke as if he had neutered the remaining mutants. No longer evil, but rather unintellegent, will-less pets--and still undesirable as a general rule. Like a tame porcupine.  
  
There was Duncan's claim that they was set to be in the front line . . . apparently neutered mutants were not quite safe enough.  
  
Then again . . . Magneto did have to be stopped. If that massive bonfire a week ago had been him . . . then it was probably wise to drive him out before more innocent lives were lost, mutant or human. Yes. That would be Scott's reason to march out there and die . . . not a ridiculous slavering loyalty to Kelly. (That and the fact the draft was compulsory and he didn't have a choice.)  
  
A tap on his shoulder set him whirling fiercely in surprise . . . but it was just the yellow, just Kurt. "Exhilerating speech, wasn't it? All a lead up to getting into formation . . . take one guess as to where we're going to be prodded."  
  
As if Kurt was narrating the story instead of merely bamfing in now and then, something did, in fact, shove Scott forward and forward until the air on his face was cleaner and not tinged with sweat. Front line.  
  
"Crap." he muttered under his breath, as Jean took his arm on one side and Rogue on the other and they began to walk.  
  
--------  
  
They marched until the sun was high and sullen. Clouds slowly roiled over the sky, sending flashes of shadow and light over Scott's body, as the entire horde halted for a morsel of dry bread and tough meat. Scott shuddered at the thought of rain, but sat down on the ground stubbornly, defying the emperor's command not to. One had to exercise one's will one way or another. The other mutants sat next to him--making an odd little lunch group.  
  
"How sweet. The cripple, the troll, the whore . . . heh heh, and the demon monkey."  
  
Yellow hurtled over Scott's head, toward Duncan's voice, and driven as much by mad curiousity as shock, Scott scooted around on his rear, trying to follow Kurt's path through the air and not having much luck. By the time he found the yellow again, Kurt had toppled Duncan with a combination of speed-born momentum and surprise and was now crouched over him, swearing in more slang dialects than Scott cared to know. "Don't you call me that! I'll kill you, you stupid . . . "  
  
Duncan's paralysis had worn off and he was now screaming at the figure on top of him, trying to dislodge the berserking mutant. Jean and Rogue moved in tandem to restrain Kurt (or help him trash Duncan, they weren't decided yet) but at that instant, (so Rogue later told Scott) Kurt leapt off the larger boy, fangs bared and tail (tail?) swishing in a pure expression of animal threat. Actually frightened (and probably not thrilled about facing Rogue again), Duncan had shot one vengeful glace at his "demon monkey," then turned and walked as fast as was dignified in the opposite direction.  
  
Kurt teleported loudly somewhere else, leaving his usual strong reek of brimstone. Rogue returned to sit next to Scott, clicking her tongue ironically. "He's a little sensitive about his appearance. Can't you tell?"  
  
Scott nodded mutely, suddenly eager to march again, for the sake of having something else to think about.  
  
A bugle call answered his desire, but the noise itself broke Scott's thoughts into troubled shards, rather than comforting him at all.  
  
And as the hasty noon camp broke, so did the looming clouds. The burst of moisture was sudden and intense, soaking Scott through his weak layers of cloth, skin, and muscle in a matter of seconds. Sodden hair trickled a steady stream of water underneath his binding cloth and irritated his eyelids. He flipped his bangs in agitation. Jean was moving easily beside him, leading Scott to suspect her feet were not sinking into the muck, which only made his misery worse.  
  
Scott gritted his teeth and yanked his foot out of a particularly troublesome sinkhole, trying not to notice that enviously comfortable Jean. The wind was icy and malicious--Scott had to grit his teeth harder to keep them from chattering. The calvary in front barked an order to slow down, a far-ahead scuffling sound making Scott wonder what exactly was the necessity of this slowing down and hoping very hard they hadn't run into an advance force or something. The wind picked up (although it certainly didn't need to), his trembling became worse, and both Rogue and Jean simultaneously began to make concerned noises. He turned away. Sympathy was the last thing he wanted.  
  
With his next step, Scott descended rapidly into a chest-deep gorge, writhing to the brim with mud. It immediately congealed around the bottom of his rib cage, sucking at his clothing. Oh. So this was why he was supposed to slow down. He groaned with the sheer unfairness of it all, but as standing and philosophizing in the filth wasn't going to get him any where, he began to slog forward. He swerved his head back and forth to catch a glimpse of green or grey or yellow to help him find his direction. Then his footing slipped.  
  
His entire body plunged into the reeking liquid mid-breath, the rankness filling his mouth and nostrils. He thrashed uselessly for a moment before he regained enough of himself to flail for a foot or branch or air bubble or anything--he brushed the hard ground beneath the torren. With panicked strength, he pushed himself upward, and managed to clear the surface, spewing dirt and water from his mouth . . .  
  
And then his body lost its momentum and sunk into the mud again. Even as Scott began to tense for another desperate thrust (one that would hopefully get him on his feet this time), something grabbed at the back of his tunic and yanked him bodily onto solid ground. Scott's head whirled in a fugue too dense to understand what had happened and when enough oxygen seeped into his brain to allow him to think, Jean and Rogue were standing over him.  
  
Wheezing and exhausted, Scott was only able to sputter out a brief thanks before pulling himself slowly upright. The pouring rain seemed to be doing a little to cleanse him--he could feel it in streams down his face, down his back, and into his clothing, his blindfold clinging to his cheekbones with muddy tenacity. And suddenly, he remembered that Kurt's yellow was not among them. This was not unusual, as the mutant was always wandering up and down the ranks, but there was the possibility . . .  
  
There was a loud implosion of air to his right and smoke wafted strongly into his face.  
  
"Oh dear. You're all awfully dirty . . ."  
  
"Kurt, you, you . . . you teleported over?"  
  
"Well, ye-eah."  
  
If Scott had known Kurt's exact position as well as Rogue and Jean, he probably would have joined in the mud-slinging as well. It's cathartic, you know. 


	3. Light

By nightfall, the rain had ceased. Camp was swiftly set up in a thick mid- west forest that was a different kind then Scott was used to. The south was lush and overgrown, reeking with humidity. The bark was mossy to the touch and came out in fist sized clumps if you pulled at it. The birds were gaudy and loud and brightly colored. There was a languidness to the water, a languidness to the wildlife. If you were more inclined to the tundra, where Scott had lived for most of his life, everything was the greyed-out color of ice, and anything that moved was wily and swift. This was unlike either of them.  
  
The trees were none so tall as the tropical forest's, or as scrubby and deep rooted as the tundra's. They were somewhat stately and straight, with needle-like leaves the length of a man's arm that drooped and swayed in the mild wind. The bird calls were short and hurried and the harsh cry of the raven was predominant. That sole similarity to the tundra didn't exactly call up nostalgic and pleasant images.  
  
Jean suddenly declared that she had grown up in a place like this, pleased to show off her knowledge of the trees and the birds, describing any bit of vegetation in depth for "Scott's benefit". He nodded vaguely from time to time, smiling when he could, and occasionally scratching the back of his neck. Jean, sometimes perceptive, finally petered off into silence.  
  
They camped under the trees. Scott felt along the ground for something other than hard hillock to lay on and finally curled up in a slight indentation in the grass.  
  
It was a warm night, if not too dry. Scott tried to ease into sleep of some sort, but his stomach was not only grumbling, but aching--he hadn't had enough to eat for a long time. He supposed he was embarressingly skinny now . . . his elbows jutted uncomfortably into the dirt--knolls of bone that served no purpose but to bump against things. He didn't have the courage to do a further touch inventory on his limbs--he didn't want to know if they were as twiggish as he feared and there was nothing he could do about them. Not until the emperor was inclined to feed them better and provide a makeshift gym . . . or weapons heavier than sticks.  
  
"Scott?" Scott hitched a shoulder uneasily. The voice was Rogue's and there was something new and broken in her tone which worried him, not only for her sake. He wasn't quite that altruistic.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Can you get up?"  
  
Let's just not ask me if I want to get up, shall we? "I guess." He shoved himself into a sitting position and slowly, cautiously, into a standing one. His stomach and several unrelated muscles roared in protest. "What is it?"  
  
"I want to show you something."  
  
"Show me . . . " but she had already grabbed his forearm and was dragging him . . . . well, somewhere. After a moment, Scott was stumbling over rises in bare dirt and exposed roots and the air had a strong leafy scent to it, which meant . . .  
  
"Rogue, I really don't think we should be wandering in the forest."  
  
"Just a minute more--we're not going far."  
  
In fact, almost as soon as "far" was finished and writhing uncomfortably in Scott's mind, she stopped and pressed a hand into his back to steady him.  
  
It was very quiet. The only noise was Rogue's breathing.  
  
"I'm not seeing anything," Scott muttered, his former uneasiness mounting to a peak.  
  
"I promise this isn't a game," Rogue blurted, although Scott had never said it was. "I can . . . I can help you see. If only for a moment."  
  
"How?" Scott had a sudden urge to run, but, of course, didn't.  
  
"I . . . I have the power to take that which uses your eyes away. Your . . . your ability, it uses your eyes, doesn't it? Makes you blind?"  
  
"I . . . I don't know."  
  
"It does, doesn't it. Jean told you that I was an energy vampire. But I'm not. Not like that. I just take a little unless I touch someone for too long. I think if I touched you a little, I could take some of your power away for a bit--so you could see. Don't you want to see? Even for a moment?"  
  
"Could you take it away permenantly?" It was out before Scott could moderate it and his tone was far too pleading. He cursed himself.  
  
"Not . . . without killing you, Scott. But for a moment."  
  
A moment. Did he have a moment? The temptation was incredible to accept Rogue's offer--for even that moment. To see the sky wreathed with clouds and darkness and scattered with stars, to see it seep through the shuddering black-green canopies of the trees. Or to look at the ground-- even if it was only packed dirt with a few weak straggles of grass. Even to look at Rogue . . . and Jean of the confusing green eyes. Even Kurt . . . even if only out of a sick curiousity. If nothing else, he needed the color. Something besides the red vagueness and the flat grey . . . the interminable dead black. And he was beginning to forget. He'd forgotten his tundra and its steel glittering greyness long ago and the dripping bright fold of the aurora borealis. He had forgotten many faces as well and those that he remembered were scattered outlines of hair and a sketch of expression. Increasingly, people were voices without substance--just impressions and flashes of color that was not color.  
  
He wanted to see the sky and have it in his dreams fresh and deep for a few months after this.  
  
But . . .  
  
"Where does it go when you take it?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"My power."  
  
"Into me," Rogue said, perfectly matter-of-fact.  
  
"Oh." Scott swallowed, and his need for a colorful reality suddenly wasn't so important. "I don't think it's a good idea, Rogue."  
  
"Why?" There was more abrupt and angry frustration in her voice than Scott thought his response entailed. "I won't touch you hard! I'm not some sort of monster . . ."  
  
"I didn't say you were! You're not!" Scott cried, panicked by this change . . . this instability in Rogue, who he'd almost come to trust, if he could trust anyone (he was also a bit scared of being physically hurt at this point), "I just don't think it'll work."  
  
"You want to see, I want to touch someone . . . without five layers of leather protecting them from me! We can both have it, for an instant anyway. I'll only brush you . . . it can't hurt to try, it can't!"  
  
"What if you want to touch me again?" Scott took a step backwards when it seemed Rogue was at enough distance that he wouldn't run into her. "What if you want it again . . . keep wanting it again?"  
  
"What if you want to see again?" she countered, and he felt her approaching.  
  
"I won't. I don't . . . I don't want to." He stumbled twice backward, almost falling. "It'll hurt me to see. I don't want it."  
  
"You're lying! Of couse you want it. You're human, how could you not?" A twig snapped sharply, too close. Her greyness was overwhelming.  
  
"Please leave me alone, Rogue."  
  
He felt wind and, knowing she was reaching for him, jerked away clumsily and ended up on the ground. "Please!" he shrieked, trying to get back up and terrified she'd grab him while he was completely helpless . . .  
  
But she was done.  
  
"All right, Scott. All right. I don't understand, but all right. I'd never do it if you . . . if you didn't want it. But I don't understand."  
  
"I can't be dependant on you," he said, almost under his breath and half hoping she wouldn't hear.  
  
But she did. "What do you mean, dependant?" Her tone was affronted.  
  
"You can't be dependant on me," he said, a little louder.  
  
"And why not?" She was shouting now, which made Scott want to curl up again, pathetic as it made him. "Why can't two people be dependant on each other? What's friendship then? Aren't we friends, Scott? Aren't you friends with anyone?"  
  
"I am your friend, Rogue," now he sounded wheedling and he hated it. He fought to bring what little firmness he thought he had into his throat and out . . . "The fault is in me, not you. I . . . I'm not strong enough to risk this, Rogue."  
  
"Then let us strengthen you. What are you afraid of?"  
  
"I don't know. Perhaps it scares the weak to be in the presence of the strong, especially when they offer him things he can't repay. It's like being in debt to a god he met on the roadside."  
  
"This isn't making any sense, Scott."  
  
"I know, I know." The back of his head lolled against something hard, probably a rock. "I don't know how to explain this. I think I feel too much like a burden already, maybe, and I'd like to be independant, like to learn how to be myself without my sight, without any cheating glimpses into what I was, you know? I can't be what I was any more . . . you really won't be doing me any favors by propping me up against your powers and showing me the light I once had. It'll hurt too much when the light is gone again . . . and it will go and I'll be worse off than before, I think-- the dreams won't be worth it. No fantasy is . . . is worth it. And what about you? Can you really bear to touch me?"  
  
"What does it matter what I can bear? I won't have time to hurt--you won't have time to hurt. Scott . . . we're going to die."  
  
"What if we don't?" he pressed stubbornly. "Seize the day is all very well, but not at the expense of all the other days, before and to come. I'm not going to say I'm going to die and let everything I've worked at for . . . for a long time go to pot. I need . . . I need the control . . ."  
  
"We're in the front line, Scott. How can control be an issue? Living is not even a possibility, you idiot! Have your sight--let yourself need us! You . . . you'd think your blindness was some sort of banner or shield or something. You never ask for help, you flinch if we do help you, you walk as if alone and we keep trying to pull you out of your isolation, but you dig in your heels as if your loneliness was so much more preferable than . . . than us! We want you to be happy, Scott, and you throw it back in our faces with your . . . your control, your . . . plans. What plans, Scott? What else have you go to live for?"  
  
"I . . . "  
  
"Let go, Scott!"  
  
"I can't." He sighed deep in his throat and covered his forehead with a limp hand. The old nameless fear giggled in his breast. His eyes hurt. And he couldn't tell her. "I just . . . can't. I'm sorry."  
  
Rogue grunted hoarsely and a boot scuffed against the dirt, which made him wonder . . .  
  
"Are the others here, too?"  
  
She didn't answer.  
  
He exhaled and the fear subsided. "Can we go back now, Rogue?"  
  
She pulled a little too roughly on his arm (her gloves were on and taut), until his legs finally heaved up under him.  
  
Without another word, they walked back to the camp. 


	4. Blood

Scott stirred to the bugle call with stiff limbs and creaking tendons. Movement was hard, but better than thinking, and he wished he could squelch his thoughts as easily as his body could just lie there--motionless without impetus to be otherwise.  
  
"Geddup! Kids in the front line especially shouldn't lay about like that!"  
  
"Shut up, Duncan," Scott growled. But got up. And tried to think about Unicorn Lovers, if his brain was so set on thinking about something.  
  
  
  
"Scott, I'm sorry."  
  
"Huh?" Scott paused mid-step and the next rank nearly knocked him over. He scuffled forward quickly and tried to regain his stride. "Oh, don't worry about it, Rogue. Um . . . " He scratched convulsively at an itchy spot on the inside of his elbow. "It's all right. Yeah. In fact . . . uh . . . I don't mind so much now."  
  
There was a sense of all the other seers leaning forward. Ah hah, so they are all in on it. Scott bit his lip and a bit of his resolve wavered. He'd better not have become some sort of communial project in the last week or so, or he was going to be mad. Maybe even break something.  
  
"Mind what? You mean--what I . . . "  
  
"Yeah, sure. It's fine. All great. No problems here, nope."  
  
"Rogue, maybe you should give him a little more time," Jean whispered, although quite within Scott's earshot, intentional or not.  
  
"You sure, Scott?" Rogue said out loud.  
  
"It's great. I'm all a . . . " he realized he was more than verging on sarcasm. "It's all right. I was just a little surprised last night." He swallowed, "It's kinda a scary . . . scary prospect. Seeing again. Crazy. Um, just tell me before you do it, because there's something . . . I need to, you know, say first to . . . to all of you."  
  
"And not now."  
  
"Not now," he agreed.  
  
"Deep dark secret?" Kurt asked.  
  
"Sure. Something like that."  
  
"Ah."  
  
They walked in silence, which Scott wasn't too eager to break. He was a little bit asocial at the best of times and he couldn't shake off a certain resentment that everyone was so dang eager to convert him back to the light of joy and happiness, when they weren't all sweetness and fluff themselves. One does have to be standing in the well-lit world of perfect emotional stability and satisfaction to pull some dank and troubled person out of the dark--and even if Rogue had a certain core of nice, good-hearted sense to her, she did still like to throw people into bunks and had that touch obsession (not that he didn't have a sight obsession, but that wasn't the issue). Jean might have been friendly and even, dare he say it, perky, in another world, but she was so bitter and manipulative from something or another that he could only have a filmed sense of the beauty that she might have been. Kurt was just . . . well, he was weird and that was the end of it.  
  
Scott did appreciate their concern and interest in him, but he didn't like the edge of desperation in that concern and he didn't like it to turn into a sort of "turn Scott into a happy guy" fest--especially when those initiating it weren't necessarily too much healthier than him emotionally. Granted, they might have been a little, but again, he didn't want to be helped or needed, he just wanted to give them what they wanted as long as it didn't include his soul and hope that they'd just talk to him like a person, not like a blind welling of pity . . .  
  
"Front line, disengage from the main body immediately and follow me."  
  
Both Jean and Rogue had already taken his arms and he needed not put any more thought into it. Of course, he did, a sort of grumbling thought that fell back to the whole "I'd rather not be helpless" thing, but, as always, there wasn't anything he could actually do about it.  
  
For Scott, he was almost in a good mood. The night before had been rather cathartic and, although the thoughts associated with it were not particularly easy or pleasant, his emotions had been released to some extent. It'd been a while since he'd shrieked like that--perhaps there was some value to behaving like a banshee every once in a while. And, as he'd been feeling particularly rotten then, worse than usual, his mood, if not his mind, had swung into a more "cheerful" sort of state. Which finally started to affect his thoughts, if a bit sluggishly.  
  
Wonder what the front line's being broken off for. Perhaps they're letting us go home. Or to a special forces mutant camp where we can act as advisors to the Mutant and not be in combat at all.  
  
The Mutant doesn't like competition.  
  
"Crap!" Scott jerked his arms half away from his female escort before he gained control over the sudden surge of fear and adrenaline and forcibly told himself to calm down. His mood rapidly descended from its brief high into not so much despondency as a middling, scared nothing.  
  
You're being paranoid. It could really be anything.  
  
The air began to smell particularly leafy again, but they continued for a while longer, Jean and Rogue making their best attempts to help Scott over the more tricky obstacles and, this time, he didn't even hint at pulling away. He was too occupied with trying not to panic.  
  
They finally stopped and although Scott heard the footsteps of whoever had been guarding them peter into the undergrowth, they hadn't been left out alone in the woods. There was another mutant there--a mottled copper--and although it wasn't moving, there was something not quite seething about it-- but a violence nonetheless.  
  
It could really be anything.  
  
Yeah right.  
  
"Ah--the Mutant," Jean said at it with a casual pseudo-respect that bordered on flippancy.  
  
"I'm sorry," he said--and it was a he, and young, "This is the Emperor's orders."  
  
A second later, there was air whistling and it was decidedly unfriendly, decidedly . . . deadly, even.  
  
Scott acted on impulse at first. He shoved to the right, knocking Jean to one side and pulling Rogue down to the other with his momentum . . . he figured Kurt could take care of himself, if anyone could. There was no thought involved--just an old, mostly un-used instinct which had flared in him during Kelly's speech. There wasn't anything to be thought about it.  
  
Scott acted on impulse at first. He shoved to the right, knocking Jean to one side and pulling Rogue down to the other with his momentum . . . he figured Kurt could take care of himself, if anyone could. Again, this was on impulse--no thought involved--just an old, mostly un-used instinct which had flared in him during Kelly's speech and withered when he'd refused Rogue, called him a coward. He didn't think anything of it.  
  
His second action, which jolted a mere instant after the first and did require a thought, albeit a quick one, was to open his eyes.  
  
The binding cloth exploded off his face and he could see, extended and further extended in a single milli-stretch of time, things like badly hewn javelins flying at trunk level--what would have been trunk level for the others, but they were down, and they were only trunk level for him--his slanted and still too upright body didn't have a chance. He focused on these javelins in his peripheral vision as much as he kept focus on anything-he didn't want to see what was directly in front of him.  
  
He had heard one last whish of air from the vicinity of the Mutant, and the beginning of a contorted scream at the same edge of time that the forward sharp of the javelins sliced leisurely into him. Scott's gaze only had a single, uncontrollable effect. The Mutant was dead.  
  
So was Scott.  
  
Time resumed.  
  
Scott had closed his eyes again by the time the javelins pinned him to a tree. The Mutant had cut off his scream.  
  
Time resumed.  
  
Scott had closed his eyes again by the time the javelins pinned him to a tree. The ferrets, the seer . . . hadn't even had time to scream.  
  
Things hadn't started to hurt yet.  
  
He heard, in a disconnected, cold fashion, Jean and Rogue scuffle up from the dirt . . . smelt Kurt' sulfur as he returned from wherever. It was not terribly interesting at this point. Scott half wondered why they bothered to do anything at that particular moment. Surely it could wait another moment or two. Or three. When he didn't feel so dull. There was something he'd have to say if they approached him now and he couldn't think of anything. Nothing at all.  
  
"Scott!" See, someone was bound to say that. How did you respond to that anyway? Did you scream back "Rogue!" or was it "Jean!" it was getting a bit hard to tell and he didn't feel like yelling . . .  
  
He almost felt a touch on his hands, but it was far away.  
  
"Ugh." He finally managed.  
  
"Maybe he'll be all right," said a doubtful Kurt male voice.  
  
"I . . . Scott?"  
  
"All right," he muttered fuzzily and tried to smile, but the muscles in his face were deciding not to work.  
  
Then things started to hurt.  
  
He fought it back for a bit, his jaws clamped together to contain the wail that was clawing up and down his throat, but seated in pinpricks--no, needles or . . . or swords--scattered through his abdomen and ribs that threw wide swatches of pain back and forth and . . . back and forth . . . and . . .  
  
His breath hissed out through his teeth in tiny "hffs" until he couldn't bear it any longer and a gasp sent his mouth wide and in the next breath he was screaming.  
  
"Get him down! Oh, oh . . . you idiots! . . . get him down."  
  
"No--his blood will all rush out that way!"  
  
"He's going to . . . he's going!"  
  
The voices were meaningless and he wanted them to shut up and there were hands on his arms and shoulders and face and they meant nothing either and things throbbed in his ears and deeper and against his veins and the pain was slowly seeping out of him and he didn't really think that was a good sign, because what replaced it was darker and colder than the tundra.  
  
He was able to stop screaming. He just cried instead. His muscles were twisting and bending over each other, but he couldn't curl up because of the sharp sticks in the way.  
  
"What are we going to do?"  
  
"What can we do?"  
  
"You can . . . go," he rasped out and his face numbed. "Be. . . fore they . . . find you."  
  
Silence.  
  
Then there was something hissed and whispered and it was trembling and incoherent as the wind stinging his forehead. Something like a constricted impatience rose in him--he did really want them to go away--out of his little circle of responsibility that covered these few trees and would last as long as he did. Easier alone, he could relax a little then. Die quietly.  
  
Fingers brushed his face and brushed it again and they were colder than he was from years of unuse. They sent tremors through him--and they were not romantic tremors and they were not hormonal tremors--they were tremors of a terror more deep and instinctual--that ancient terror that had tried to tell him the last night--and those tremors were backed up with a terrible disjointed pull that dredged into him and out of him and would she just stop it because this is really not the time to get her touch!  
  
"Ah . . . ah . . . ah . . ." His voice sounded small and distant and ascending like a whine and the tremors were getting worse.  
  
"Jean . . . " Rogue was a pinprick, wrong angle . . . getting larger and the grey was back and there was no dark or red or flaccid nothing grey, but . . .  
  
"Do it!"  
  
WHAT? Kill ME?  
  
"This . . . " She inhaled and the grey flickered and she kissed him firm on the mouth a second before he knew exactly what she was doing.  
  
His "WAIT!" vanished into the grey with everything else. And there was finally silence. 


	5. Interlude

"He's dead, Rogue."  
  
"Could someone please take him down?"  
  
The emotion in Jean's voice had dropped by the time Rogue moved silently, mechanically away--pressing her back up against a tree and dangling her head nearly between her knees. Jean couldn't spare her more than a glance. She put a hand to her mouth and let it stay there until she could breathe again without it catching in her throat. Then she advanced . . . and went to work.  
  
Her arms trembled as she tugged and strained against the bone spears and tried not to look at anything. The spear slid roughly and stubbornly in her palms for far too long before it finally jerked out and the sudden movement nearly knocked her over. Kurt dropped the one he had been heaving at an instant after she dropped hers. Her hands were damp, not entirely with sweat, and she had to not think about that.  
  
  
  
Rogue did not help or even move, although Jean could hear her breathing as she dug her claws into the grooves on yet another javelin and began to pull again. She felt a smattering of a certain apprehensive pain-- something just short of guilt. Rogue hadn't wanted to do what she had just done-- there was no guarantee that it would work or that it would be worth it if it did. Jean had had to urge her to do it and quickly, for wasn't Scott's life more important than such fears and compunctions? Surely Rogue' power was frightening to herself, but one should have no hesitation at using it that one time it was actually useful. She shouldn't have had to be re- assured that to do what she did wouldn't make her a monster--it had been a waste of time and Rogue should have thought of the idea herself--Jean couldn't do the thinking for everyone, especially in such stress. They had nearly lost Scott to the delay--perhaps they had lost him anyway. But Jean had felt Scott, or at least, something of him make the transfer in that vague, unused corner of her power--the question was whether or not he would be self existent and not mere supplemental energy.  
  
Jean had shed her tears already--while she removed the javelins. One had to be somewhat efficient. It was not as thought she had no affection for Scott- -nothing could be further than the truth. But what she was pulling down from a skewered perch was meat--and while disturbing, it wasn't really Scott, not anymore. There was a certain tragedy to where he was, but she couldn't feel it--not until it came. It would hurt enough when it did.  
  
The body suddenly tumbled free and, again, despite all her cold thoughts of a moment before, she couldn't bear to look at it. In turning her head, though, she nearly ended up staring at what was left of the Mutant, which was not much better. His death had given her no satisfaction--he was only doing his job, probably--although if he'd thought for himself and by-passed his orders, they would all still be alive. As it was, he was very necessarily dead and had essentially dragged Scott with him, which, at the very least, was a frightful inconvenience.  
  
Not only that, but Jean figured that Scott would, broody personality that he had, feel terribly guilty about the whole thing, should he hopefully re- emerge.  
  
It was then, as she paused, half catching her breath and half taking a sort of contemplative quick-retreat, she remembered that Rogue ought to be killing everything in sight, quite literally, by now. She didn't seem to be- -as Jean noted with a swift and frightened glance that her eyes were half open and normal--and that was troubling and relieving at once. Jean had been under the impression that Scott's eyes just . . . fired like that and had to be covered or else and here Rogue was staring at the grass and leaving it unmarred as though such a normal action made sense.  
  
"What are were going to do now?" Kurt asked so softly she could barely hear him.  
  
"What? Oh . . . we leave. Now."  
  
"We won't . . . bury him?"  
  
"We've lost enough time already."  
  
Kurt nodded and looked over at Rogue, "Think she can travel?"  
  
"She'd better. Rogue! Can you get up?"  
  
She raised her head slowly as if it didn't matter, but got up. Her expression was entirely unreadable and although that vagueness in Jean's mind gave her a certain sense of Rogue' presence beyond mere sight, it was particularly muddied this time. She'd have to actually ask Rogue questions to dampen her ferocious curiosity and that wouldn't do at the moment--Rogue didn't look in the mood for anything, much less questions.  
  
Jean set out the path, based on no knowledge whatsoever save the position of the camp. She simply walked in a general direction away from the horde, Kurt moping along at her side on all fours as Rogue zombied beside him. Jean did miss, after a few minutes, Scott's always shuffling, cautious step and the tilt of his body that was always somewhat removed from everyone else. Even if something of Scott had to be left . . . even if only in Rogue . . . Jean didn't imagine that particular aspect of him would return. This actually hurt to think about--so she didn't.  
  
She had to keep an eye on the forest, as Rogue certainly wasn't and Kurt was unusually distracted.  
  
For all that careful eye, however, she didn't see the girl until she had literally walked right through her. Which was inexcusable--Jean should have sensed her, even if her clothing was well-camouflaged. As it was, the girl was obviously a mutant and possibly one of Kelly's spies and something had to be done. She whirled on the-somehow-walk-throughable-person, and prepared to launch an inquisition of wracking intensity. But, just then, Rogue fell over and some things take precedence over others.  
  
"Don't move," Jean snapped at the girl, who didn't seem about to (and wouldn't, even if she'd wanted to--Jean hadn't lost her touch), and rushed to Rogue' side, who was actually blinking now and maybe alert. "What happened?"  
  
"Oh . . . crap . . ." Rogue moaned and fainted, which wasn't at all useful and made little surges of true worry shoot through Jean's veins.  
  
Well.  
  
"Kurt, we're going to have to wait for Rogue to revive. Watch the girl--if she moves, kill her." Not that Kurt would probably do anything of the sort, but it couldn't hurt the girl to think it, Jean had always wanted to say it, and one shouldn't be held back by petty inhibitions. At least, now, she could have her full attention on Rogue.  
  
-----------------------------  
  
Every once in a while, events jump and flip and otherwise move out of your control. Sometimes more than once or even twice in a while--sometimes even for years and years worth of events, you just have to crouch there in the epicenter of a lifestorm and hope you don't get struck by an opportunistic bolt of lightning.  
  
Kitty realized this and yet she didn't think that essentially being psychologically cemented to stand in one spot like this was terribly fair, even in the unscrupulous game of control.  
  
The mutants she'd run into were obviously from Kelly's force--only he seemed to have a perverse urge to brand people like that. They might have been interesting to spy on, had Kitty noticed them before they noticed her. But she had been investigating some wolf scat--one simply doesn't see that every day--and the tall domineering one had blown her cover too rapidly for her to retreat.  
  
The whole situation was just not working out for Kitty.  
  
The tall one's death order didn't help her mood any, as "Kurt" appeared to be a demonically possessed gargoyle of some sort. She wasn't sure whether the fact he hardly seemed to be paying her any attention was a good sign or not, but she was glad he wasn't, for those straight yellow eyes of his were even creepier than . . . well, the rest of him.  
  
At this rate, she was either not going to reach Kelly's camp at all, or reach it as a prisoner, or a corpse . . . or a branded draftee. Perhaps, once her captors looked a little less tense, she could feed them Magneto's recruiting speal . . . and they could feed her exclusive and secret information in return.  
  
Yeah, that was likely.  
  
Kitty let out an exasperated sigh and waited for something to happen. 


	6. Mindscape

His hands clasped his ankles so tightly his knees were pressed into his chin--and he was lying in a bent shape on his side, on something hard. His eyes were closed and they burned terribly against the inside of his eyelids.  
  
A finger nudged his back.  
  
"How long has he been like this?"  
  
"Hours, sir. We found him out just beyond the porch, lying in the snow-- just like this."  
  
"He hasn't moved since? Talked?"  
  
"No, sir."  
  
"You have no idea why?"  
  
"No, sir."  
  
"Hmmmm . . ."  
  
Scott hated that sound, that hmmmmmm, and it was inevitable that it was followed by another prod to his back. Then the prod was on his face, just under his right eye, and he let out a cry that surprised even him and unlocked, pushing himself away from the probing hands.  
  
"Well, that was movement, wouldn't you say?"  
  
"Yes, sir. It was."  
  
"Sensitive eyes, perhaps? The sun-glare can be especially intense this time of year--he might have damaged them. Scott--Scott! Will you talk to me?"  
  
"Will you . . . touch them again?"  
  
"No, son, not if you don't want me to. Do they hurt?"  
  
"Yes," he said weakly.  
  
"Can you open them?"  
  
"No. No . . . not now. Never."  
  
The doctor clicked his tongue. "Never? Never is a long time, son. I'm sure we can do something for them that would forestall all that."  
  
"Never," he moaned and he wanted to curl up again.  
  
"Now, now, son, why can't you open them?"  
  
His brain whirred and hedged and finally he lied, "Because my eyes are bleeding."  
  
Silence. Someone coughed a little too loudly in the background.  
  
"Your eyes are bleeding, son?"  
  
"Yes. A lot. I was looking at the sun and then something hit them and then they were bleeding. I don't know why."  
  
"Can I look?"  
  
"No, you can't."  
  
"But, son, they can't be too damaged--your eyelids are clean."  
  
"I wiped them."  
  
"Hmmmmm . . . "  
  
There it was again.  
  
"Mrs. Summers, could you leave the room for a moment? I need to check and I don't think you'll want to see this."  
  
Footsteps retreating, the door creaking open, then a slam as it wasn't open any more.  
  
"Now son," and the doctor's voice was firmer, "What really happened?"  
  
"Just what I told you," Scott pressed stubbornly.  
  
"No, it didn't. I've treated many eyes, even bleeding ones, and if what you said was true, your eyelids wouldn't look normal like they do now. Now tell me what really happened."  
  
Scott couldn't think of anything to say.  
  
"Was it a ploy for attention?"  
  
"No . . . I can't open my eyes."  
  
"You really can't? Why?"  
  
"I . . . I just can't."  
  
"Tell me why, Scott."  
  
There was something hard at the back of his throat and he began to cry. "I can't."  
  
"Scott, you can tell me. I can help you. I've probably treated your problem a thousand times."  
  
"No, you haven't."  
  
"Scott, don't be stubborn about this. I can't help you unless you tell me."  
  
"Would you . . . would you tell my parents?"  
  
"Would you want me to?"  
  
"No! Don't!"  
  
"I won't then. I'll just fix it. Now, tell me, Scott."  
  
Scott swallowed down the hurt and muttered, "Things come out of my eyes."  
  
"Things?"  
  
"Red things and they destroy stuff."  
  
"Really?" The doctor's voice was doubtful.  
  
"I can't show you. I can't control them. I'll hurt someone."  
  
"Hmmm . . . could you open your eyes behind your hands? Would that hurt your hands?"  
  
"No, I did that once."  
  
"Do that."  
  
"But what if . . ."  
  
"I'll be okay."  
  
"You don't believe me."  
  
"Just do it."  
  
Scott exhaled and clamped his hands as tightly as he could over the upper half of his face, even digging in his fingernails, just to make sure. He paused for a long moment, frozen by a certain terror, before opening his eyelids--just a slit.  
  
Power convulsed wildly against his fingers, fighting to seep between them and escape in blood-tinged spurts, spurts that could kill, and Scott hissed in his fear and closed his eyes again.  
  
There was silence. Silence so profound that Scott was half convinced that, despite everything, he had killed the doctor. But then . . .  
  
"You're right, Scott. You can never open your eyes again."  
  
"How old were you?"  
  
He was standing in a plain, a grey-ice plain that shimmered out far beyond him and had only a blurred touch of a horizon. He wasn't alone, either, although perhaps he should have been. Rogue was behind him--at least, it had been her voice. He couldn't bring himself to turn around. Not yet.  
  
"I was twelve."  
  
"That was a long time ago--a long time to live without eyes."  
  
"Huh. Perhaps." He folded his arms and stared out at the blurred horizon, just because he could. "Doesn't matter so much now."  
  
"I . . . I'm surprised they let you keep them at all." There was a tremor in her voice that nearly made him look at her. "When I . . . accidentally hurt someone with my . . . skin, they kept me in a room for nearly a week before I managed to escape. I think they might have killed me if I hadn't. Your eyes, though--they couldn't have kept you if you hadn't wanted to be kept."  
  
"Actually, they could have."  
  
There was a gasp, "They didn't actually try to . . ."  
  
"They thought about it." Scott kicked edgewise at the permafrost, biting his lip. "They would have, too, if my parents hadn't appealed to the local Empire representative, convincing him that my ability could be very useful in battle--and Magneto was a worry even then. The local representative apparently had a kinder view of mutants than Kelly--assuming that Kelly did order us killed in the first place--because he let me keep my eyes. In a sense."  
  
"You were lucky. I can't believe they trusted you to control yourself with only a will and a blindfold."  
  
"They didn't," his voice was soft, almost a whisper. The horizon trembled as if in anticipation and he fought it down-it seemed the images in his mind liked to seep out into the landscape and this was something he didn't want to see again. Not like that.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
There was no reason not to tell her now. "Some men came to our front door, about a month after I went to see the doctor. They demanded me from my parents-not that they didn't moderate that demand with a promise. That they wouldn't hurt me. That I'd be safer with them. And my parents were a little frightened of what I could do, yes. What if some kid knocked into me at school and I opened my eyes for . . . just a moment-of course going with these official looking men would be safer. It had to be safer. They told me what they were going to do, that I would be going to live with these nice people for a while, that they would help me. I wasn't young enough not to be scared, but I went.  
  
"As soon as we'd walked far enough away from the house that my parents wouldn't be able to see what was going on, they stuck me with something-and I lost all my senses entirely. I was awake . . . heh, but I might as well have been dead for all I could tell. I couldn't move, either. I don't know if they carried me or what, it didn't matter. I was like that for so long-and they could have cut off my legs and I wouldn't have felt a thing."  
  
"They could do that to you?"  
  
"Yeah. I don't know how. They could have been mutants. It doesn't matter. I only know what happened next by guessing-and by seeing the room I was in. It was an odd room-well, the way it was built wasn't too odd, but there was this platform in the middle of it. It was obviously built for a person-because there were these straps positioned around the basic shape of a human body. Probably about three for every limb, two for the trunk, three that bound the trunk and limbs together, one for the neck. That's where I was. I don't even know why they bothered. That room . . . that was where they . . . fixed my eye problem."  
  
"Fixed?" Rogue asked so fiercely, Scott shivered and had to clear his throat a couple of times before continuing.  
  
"They . . . they did a good job. Very tight, very professional. Took me . . . um, better part of a month to pick . . . pick it out when I finally got the nerve to try."  
  
"They sewed your eyes shut?! Is that what they did?"  
  
"Yes . . . yes, they did."  
  
"How can you speak about that so calmly-that . . . look at that sky . . that . . . that up there is what you really feel-it horrifies you."  
  
Scott tilted his head slightly toward the horizon, to the black clouds that roiled over the grey and stifled it completely, to the shards of red that bled through them and if that was his emotions somehow, perhaps it was a fine enough thing he was dead. "I wouldn't be human if it didn't. But they did what they thought they had to do. What else could they have done?"  
  
"They could have allowed you to be who you were-to learn control on your own instead of being forced . . ."  
  
"What does a twelve year old boy know about control?" And now he did turn around to look at her, smiling crookedly despite himself.  
  
She just gaped at him and he realized she had been crying. "Scott, I'm sorry."  
  
"Why should you be sorry? I'm the one who should be sorry."  
  
"Why?" She edged slightly toward him. "The memories? I can handle them-- now, anyway."  
  
"No . . . I apparently didn't die fast enough."  
  
"What . . . " Her voice was so odd that Scott had to look at her, "What do you mean?"  
  
"If you're here, they found you, didn't they? If you're here . . . . " He stopped and a memory not-so-ancient, but briefly forgotten, blared in the forefront of his brain. He raised his hand and there was a transparency, or at least a translucence to it and as he stared at Rogue over his fingertips--she was as solid as if this was all somehow real.  
  
He whirled away from her and ran.  
  
"Scott! Scott--wait, please--Scott!"  
  
She was thumping after him, but he was lighter, and faster, flitting over the tundra with instinctive ease and out of it, into turmoils of red and black, and half seen images that he didn't dare look at closely and while she pursued him, he was in no danger of being caught and had no intention of stopping until he knew . . .  
  
Light blared through his body as it ceased to be his body and he felt larger--felt a coldness at his fingertips and they moved when he desired them to, but they were not as familiar as they should be. His eyes tingled, but were oddly cool, and as he opened them a slit--he could see overhanging leaves and the sky above them and nothing . . . absolutely nothing . . . fired off at all.  
  
Then Jean leaned over him, with fiery bright green eyes and asked him "What happened?" and that was all he'd expected.  
  
"Oh . . . crap . . ." he moaned in a voice that was not his own and fell back into the miasm. 


	7. Parasite

It would be tempting to say Kurt was bored out of his wits, but he honestly wasn't. He wasn't one of those people who needed something in his hands or someone to talk to or something deep to think about to keep himself amused. A misshapen blade of grass straggling beneath a stone had an interest of its own, an interest that didn't need to be analyzed or quantified. An unbranded female mutant with an irritated set to her jaw had an interest of its own as well, and she didn't have to be actually doing anything to keep his attention.  
  
Kurt had long learned the value of peripheral vision in observation. People tended to get uncomfortable when he stared at them, although heaven knew they stared at him enough. His peripheral vision was particularly good--it helped not to have strongly defined pupils. So he crouched, face jutting forward, and watched the girl out of the corner of his eye because she was there to be watched.  
  
The sun had only dipped a hand's breadth further toward the horizon when Rogue awoke with a loud enough gasp that Kurt forgot the girl entirely and shot forward like a startled dog. His sister was already sitting up and staring at him with those angry grey eyes of hers, ignoring Jean's "You all right?" entirely. The edges of her eyelids quivered and she sighed with such a tremor that Kurt was momentarily unsure that this was the person he'd grown up with at all.  
  
"He's closed himself off."  
  
"What?" Jean asked, too eager. Pathetic.  
  
Rogue's gaze burned harder into him, almost as if she had heard his thoughts. "Scott's awake and he's in me and . . . he knows. He won't talk or respond or--he's closed himself off in a corner of my mind and he won't come out."  
  
"Well, can you blame him?" Kurt asked as evenly as he could manage.  
  
Rogue's eyes flashed and she made a sound in her throat that . . . was not a threat. There was a glistening against her cheekbones that worried him. It was Jean that glared at him as if he were evil incarnate. It was Rogue who was breaking down. "No," she said huskily and wiped quickly at her eyes, the muscles in her face clenching. Good. Back straight, strength to the forefront. It's all right to feel pain, but never show weakness. Keep going, pummel me if you have to. Show Jean who's boss. Show her who made the sacrifice.  
  
"Rogue," Jean ventured, "Does he seem to be okay?"  
  
"Okay?" Rogue spat, rising abruptly to her feet. Kurt jumped to one side cautiously--for his own safety, and for a better view. Don't overdo it.  
  
"Besides that, Rogue. Please." Love triangles, spit on them. Don't tell her any more than you have to. He's beyond her reach now, but beyond yours, too.  
  
Rogue huffed out her breath a couple of times before answering. "He seems to be . . . there, although his precense is . . . less than mine. But that might change, once he . . . gets used to . . . oh . . ."  
  
Don't break down!  
  
"Were you able to talk to him at all? Before . . . "  
  
"Yeah." She swallowed hard, twice. "Yeah."  
  
"What did he say?"  
  
Although he didn't want her to tell Jean, Kurt found himself leaning ever so slightly forward anyway.  
  
"He . . . showed me. I think he thought he ws dead. He told me about his past, mainly."  
  
"His past?" Something ugly ran over Jean's face, as fleeting as a shadow.  
  
"I don't want to talk about it. Maybe he will . . . later. But I won't tell you."  
  
Kurt sat back on his hanches and gnawed on a fingernail, seemingly nonchalant. Good. Don't tell her anything. Not yours to tell. She'll have to back off, now.  
  
"All right. You're okay?"  
  
"I'll be okay."  
  
"Good. I think it's time I talked to our new . . . . friend." Jean turned away from Rogue and toward the girl and Kurt scrambled back to all fours and flanked her, his pace just a titch slower than hers. Her expression had turned frankly menacing.  
  
Jean stopped in front of the girl, arms akimbo and Kurt skidded to a stop to the right of her, closer to the girl than to their new self-proclaimed leader.  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
The girl swallowed, but smiled so brilliantly Kurt was rather impressed, even as he half wondered if she was insane. "Kitty Pride. Nice to meet you on such a beautiful . . ."  
  
"Who do you work for?"  
  
"We-ell, Magneto. Heard of him?"  
  
Ah.  
  
Jean's mouth actually gaped open for a glorious moment before she got hold of herself again. "Magneto? What are you doing out here?"  
  
"Spying! A-and, you're from Kelly's forces, I can tell. How is old Kelly?"  
  
Well, she certainly has gumption . . .  
  
"How does Magneto feel about incoming mutants?" Jean asked, rapid-fire. Annoyed, are we? He chanced a glance over his shoulder to ascertain that Rogue was indeed hovering close by.  
  
"Oh. Yeah. You're asking the questions, aren't you? Magneto will accept any mutant who wants to join him, thrilled to have them. Especially if you're running from Kelly's forces, man, he's so dead set again Kelly's treatment of . . . "  
  
"That's enough," Jean said with such firmness that the girl stopped, silent as stone, and Kurt winced hard. She didn't have to do that. "I must . . . confer with my people."  
  
"Your people?" Kurt snickered after Jean had managed to coax him and Rogue into a "huddle."  
  
Jean ignored him--she was occasionally able to do that. "All right--you both heard. Do we trust her or not?"  
  
Why do you even bother? You've made up your mind. "Well, what do you think?" he asked out loud, folding his arms. "You've got that . . . thingy. That . . . intuition or what have you. What does that tell you?"  
  
"I want to hear both of your impressions of our visitor first."  
  
There was something about a direct command Kurt couldn't resist. He wasn't precisely submissive or brainless--and even in strict obedience, he could weasel his way out of anything he didn't particularly want to do. But when a creature, even a free thinking and cautious one, is simply not built to lead and when living alone is not an option and when one's personality tends to be a little caustic--it didn't hurt to follow orders when they were given and be at least semi-dependable about it.  
  
Which was why Kurt actually closed his eyes and pressed his misshapen fist against his chin and tried to come up with an "impression." He really did try. He had closed his eyes to block out distractions, which tended to be his bane, and tried very hard not to think about Scott or the implications of going with Magneto. Just the girl, Kitty.  
  
He pretty much drew a blank, except for one "impression" that was probably not safe to share.  
  
He just couldn't resist sharing it.  
  
He opened his eyes. Rogue and Jean were both staring at him expectantly. He shrugged and couldn't keep the grin from spreading over his face. "She's cute."  
  
"Kurt . . . " Rogue growled and her utter revulsive enmity made him angry.  
  
"It's true! Am I capable of lying, sister?"  
  
"Shut up!"  
  
"Guys, guys! Your impressions."  
  
Kurt bit back something nasty and flattened his tone, "She's okay. I think."  
  
Rogue grunted non-commitedly, still glaring at him.  
  
"Does Scott say anything?" Does he need to? Scott would never approve-- it's in the set of his face, that hard-black-and-whiteness, but what can he do about it?  
  
"He's not talking."  
  
"Can you . . . read anything?" She's not you. She won't.  
  
"I'm leaving that alone, Jean," Rogue hissed, her attention finally off him. Thought so.  
  
"All right, all right. So I'm almost absolutely sure she's telling the truth. The question is whether what she believes is the truth is the truth, but this might be our last change." She exhaled slowly, "We haven't been going very quickly and the fact we haven't heard or seen any pursuit doesn't mean there isn't any. Walking in a straight line to who knows where--it'd be safer to be with Magneto, I think, whatever his views."  
  
"And we'd get to raize villages." It was out before he'd thought about it and he knew he'd made a mistake. Rogue took a step forward, drawing herself to her full height, her livid paleness right there and threatening him. Kurt bared his fangs at her reflexively, hurt despite himself. Still so blasted raw about that. Why she cares, I'll never know, why spend so much pain on a burning she might have iniatited herself, given the chance? It's that stupid boy, I'd bet, and his stupid . . . Ah, maybe it's still just the whole Scott thing . . . touchy, like PMS personified. She'd have blown up if I'd suggested Magneto might have a puppy running around his camp. He scooted back, knuckling the ground in their privately recognized ritual of domination . . . and submission, always submission in his case. "Just kidding," he grated. There, you're strong again.  
  
"So we go," Jean whipped out, taking a step back--with that movement effectively dissembling the group. "And we'd better hurry."  
  
She walked over to Kitty and released her, with a mind flick or something. "We'll give you whatever information we have--if you lead us to Magneto."  
  
"Good stuff," Kitty said weakly, then her voice darkened surprisingly, "Um, hey, just out of curiousity, Kelly's not marching this direction at this very moment or anything, is he?"  
  
"We're fugitives . . . of sorts, so maybe part . . . but certainly not the full force."  
  
"Terrific! I always wanted to get hooked up with troublemakers and rebels! You're my new set of heroes! But follow me--and fast."  
  
Kitty leapt into the underbrush with surprising speed and even Kurt, who was hardly inexperienced at taking quite literally to the woods, was hard pressed to follow.  
  
Well, no wonder. She's passing right through all the brambles, blast her.  
  
--------------------------  
  
Not even the most maudlin of poets could ever describe the tundra as "weeping." Let that be reserved for rainforests and riversides and over- cast nights in the hayfields. The tundra does not weep. It softens into life if placed under sustained pressure from the sun, but it does not weep. The clouds were roiling and grey-black, violently dark, lightning flickering blood just under their surface.  
  
But they were dry.  
  
The air was cold and completely still, a sullen calm. Scott sat in the center of it, his hands clasped about his knees. Only the tightness around the bones of those clasping hands betrayed his tension.  
  
Why does this always happen to me? There must be some deep underlying reason. Maybe there's something about my expression--something so frighteningly weak written into my face--something that makes it impossible for people to resist "helping" me. I have to ask for this somehow, because it always happens.  
  
I like this whole idea of taking care of myself, making my own decisions, accepting the consequences. Pretty simple, really. I could have dealt with dying. How do I deal with this?  
  
I should be able to deal with it. I shouldn't have to worry about privacy. I never really had privacy anyway. So this is one notch dropped on the privacy scale, whatever--it's no big deal. Rogue won't pry, I don't think. I can keep to my little corner and . . . meditate or maybe I can have partial access to her senses, have a basic idea of what's going on every once in a while. It'll be all right. I don't even have to worry about my eyes firing off--apparently Rogue doesn't either, so this could possibly be the best time of my life. Yeah. This is going to be all right.  
  
The clouds gathered faster and blacker into an oily pool overhead and the air fizzled, ionized with restrained electricity. It hissed and sparked and stung him and the horizon was rimmed with white branching claws of energy. Oh crap, it is not all right!  
  
You're hurting me! snapped though the wind and the storm abruptly died into a whisper. Scott nearly fainted in the sudden emptiness.  
  
Scott!  
  
Sorry, he chattered out, feeling sick.  
  
I didn't mean to do that.  
  
It's all right. It's your mind. Scott drew himself to his knees, swaying a little. I'm okay.  
  
No, you're not. But Scott . . . it was the only thing we could do.  
  
You could have let me die. I was getting rather curious about the afterlife.  
  
You didn't look all that curious at that moment. We could only react . . . you were screaming . . .  
  
No one's chipper when they've been impaled, Scott said a little sardonically, pressing the his palms against his forehead as the nausea rose in a crippling wave. Man. You feeling all right, Rogue?  
  
How could I be?!  
  
It wasn't your fault, he groaned as the sick pain became stronger, doubling him over. Sorry I mentioned it . . .  
  
Scott! What's going on? The clouds returned, but they were warmer and thicker and very brown, like over-ripe and dripping peach flesh and the tundra underneath his knees melted into torrents of mud. Scott gritted his teeth and slipped, splashing forward into the wet.  
  
Everything cleared . . . it was just him and Rogue again. In an empty landscape that was . . . just nothing.  
  
Rogue shuddered, hissing her breath out. "I'm really sorry, Scott. I can't . . . control my thoughts that well yet."  
  
"They're . . . rather powerful," Scott wheezed. "Very . . . impressive. Think I prefer you here than as a booming voice in the sky. Scared the crap out of me."  
  
"I am sorry. About everything. I . . . didn't think I had a choice. Not when I could save you and . . . "  
  
"Please, don't worry about it." Scott carefully got to his feet, brushing off his shirt although it wasn't dirty--not any more. "It'll work out. Give me a few more hours. I'll try to control myself too. I just . . . yeah, you know."  
  
"It's no way to live," Rogue moaned and the area beyond the sky flickered a little.  
  
"Obviously, it is. It's the way I'm living. Don't worry about it. Please." She turned away. He sighed. "Is everything all right out there, Rogue? You're safe?"  
  
"Yes, we're going somewhere safe," she said distantly.  
  
"That's good." He sat back down, clasping his hands around his knees like he had before. It was a comfortable position, of sorts . . . he tended to gravitate back to it if he didn't make a conscious effort not to. "That . . . that's good."  
  
"I'll let you alone now . . ." She began to fade.  
  
"Ah--wait, Rogue?"  
  
Back. Solid. "What?"  
  
No, that's stupid. "Never mind. Sorry."  
  
She was gone. The clouds slowly began to gather again, but at least they weren't quite so dark, this time. 


	8. Host

Rogue was not happy. Granted, she seldom was. At least, not happy in the usual over-joyful the-world-is-green-and-wonderful way. Perhaps earlier, when she had been younger and fully human, when the only emotional pain was either quick and petty, such as whether this boy or that would pay attention to her, or somewhat morose, but unchangeable and removed from her personally-case in point, Kurt's eternal inability to interact with people. No, her earlier years had not been idyllic, nothing worth singing about, but they'd had ups and downs and the ups were usually better than the downs, because what does a pre-adolescent of fair means and careful upbringing have to angst about?  
  
Yeah, things had been all right then, mainly. Maybe even Kurt would have been okay, if Rogue hadn't been just as flawed, only deeper, and that deeper flaw was the crueller one. Perhaps it was fate. No one can be a twin to a demon and not be a little tainted.  
  
She didn't remember exactly how it had started. What exactly Joe was doing and why he was touching her hand so long--that was lost. It didn't matter. She hadn't killed him, but she'd felt him in her--dormant, dead thought, memories that affixed to her own and mannerisms she knew were his, but jumped out of her as easily as habit nonetheless. She'd been terribly confused, confused more than frightened. It had been easy for them to take her. When she'd . . . realized why they'd taken her, she didn't mind so much what she thought they were going to do. She was a monster. Anyone who's skin was poisonous had to die, for the greater good. Yeah, the greater good.  
  
Whether those were her thoughts or someone else's she couldn't tell. She'd escaped anyway. You're not all that resigned when you're fourteen to give yourself up to the greater good, not instinctually, not really. Kurt had broken open her prison somehow and she'd left. She half remembered her rationale--she hadn't killed Joe, maybe she couldn't actually kill anyone, it was simple enough, just don't touch anyone, how hard could that be?  
  
What a joke, it'd been hard, still was. And she'd killed. Intentionally, once. Scott wasn't the only soul trapped inside her. It would have been better if he was--not knowing was always better. Not knowing what was bound to happen . . . no one wants to be a prophet, not in that sense.  
  
"Rogue," Kurt hissed from a small, but safe distance, pacing her above, from the branches. "I need to talk to you."  
  
"Not now," Rogue growled, catching the edge of her foot on a root and hissing herself.  
  
"Later. When we stop." He leapt ahead, then, thin tail whipping out after him. Rogue could hardly contain her disgust--that hurt as well and also came from knowing. She'd never minded his appearance before everything and now it was just a more glaring reminder among thousands of more muddied reminders that probably weren't for her anyway.  
  
She wanted to stop now. Not that she really cared about whatever Kurt had to say, but she was very tired and she had no real interest in joining up with Magneto post-haste. She didn't like the idea of Magneto. She should have said more during Jean's conference, made some sort of moral protest, but had been . . . distracted, both by Kurt . . . and Scott, of course. Her moral protest would have been weak anyway. Whatever natural qualms she might have over the man/group who had probably burned her village and from all rumors happily slaughtered humans, there wasn't much choice, him or Kelly. Kelly apparently happily slaughtered mutants. As far as Rogue was concerned, that was fine, too, her at the forefront. Perhaps she didn't have Scott's easy attitude toward death--she recognized she needed a little more dramatics to be satisfied with the idea and for all the awfulness, she didn't quite want to go yet--but maybe it would rub off on her before long, which was what she was afraid of. Just get it over with now, that'd be better, before Scott did rub off, like Rahne before him.  
  
The sun was down and the trees around her were a certain red. Not a bright, garish, emperor red or even the pooled brown-red of blood, but a certain grey-red, red hovering on the edge of twilight and non-color. Twilight is not much of a time for running in.  
  
At least Kitty had the sense to know that.  
  
"We're probably gonna have to stop for the night. I don't mind running in the dark, but you heroes look pretty beat, so this is as good a place as any, I think. Nice clearing, don't you think?"  
  
It wasn't much of a clearing. More of a half-gap in the trees, barely wide enough to accomadate them all. It was lucky that it was a warm night and dry, because only over-cheerful Kitty had anything in the way of supplies and her single blanket couldn't cover them all, even excepting Kurt by default.  
  
Rogue crouched on the edge of that "clearing" and would have remained there, chin leaned hard against folded arms and brooding eyes fixed on the grass that still remained untouched, if Kurt really hadn't been adamant about speaking with her.  
  
He hung from an overhanging tree, forearms hanging lax from the rest of his body, serious even when up-side down. "We've stopped."  
  
"Yeah, so?" She grumbled almost incoherently.  
  
"It's time to talk. Can we withdraw a bit . . . please?"  
  
Rogue blinked and raised her head. Kurt's tone had taken on the odd softness that always stung her, every time he used it. Invoked memories-- it was always memories. He probably did it on purpose, just as manipulative as any Jean, but she did stand up and she did follow him that short distance into the woods. There was something painfully familiar about that, too.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"You can't tell Jean," he said, still with the softness, his flat yellow eyes deflected.  
  
"About what?"  
  
"You know. About Scott. Don't tell her anything. She doesn't understand."  
  
"Understands enough," Rogue said a little too firmly--she knew where this was bound to go.  
  
"She thinks you're a bug jar," Kurt finally spat, and the softness was gone. "Everyone does, they don't understand. They think they can use you to preserve . . . they don't even know what you are."  
  
"And you do?" Rogue snapped back, regardless of the fact he wasn't angry at her--it honestly didn't matter, it was the same.  
  
"I sat with you through the Rahne year--I was with you the ientire time/i and if anyone except iyou/i knows, I know. I know very well that Scott is idead/i. I just had to know that you knew."  
  
Was there a tinge of grief in his voice? Again, it didn't matter and it probably wasn't real.  
  
"Don't insult me," she said tautly, "especially if you know so . . . much. I know. I killed him."  
  
"It wasn't your fault."  
  
"What? You're gonna give me a way out? 'No, it wasn't your fault, you're just too weak-minded to refuse Jean when she . . . '"  
  
"I might have done the same thing, in your place." He settled onto all fours, plucking clumsily at a piece of grass. Rogue sneered at him.  
  
"Really. Define 'my place.'"  
  
"I'm not blind," Kurt growled, but didn't look up. "I know what you felt for him." "Ah, like what you feel for Kitty."  
  
"That's . . . quick and neutered, and therefore harmless, lust," Kurt snorted. "You didn't feel that for Scott. He was something to you, an idea, if nothing else. You've never . . . watched over anyone like that, not even me, . . . in the early days."  
  
"Scott wasn't like you."  
  
"Nah, he wasn't. He didn't need the protection." He finally extracted his blade of grass and gnawed on it--he'd always liked gnawing on things. "That was your mistake, you and Jean."  
  
She sighed, leaning back against a tree and feeling more tired than ever, "You pulled me out here to tell me that?"  
  
"Not really. Have you . . . have you come to terms with what's bound to happen?"  
  
"Why do you care?" That was reflexive.  
  
"I remember Rahne."  
  
"I can't come to terms with it. Not the diminishing and the quieting, until it's just a whisper and a bundle of traits. I don't want it to happen. I'd rather die."  
  
"It's still soon. It'll be a while. He has some months. Maybe . . . maybe Magneto can help."  
  
"Yeah. Let's put our hopes on Magneto."  
  
"I didn't say that. Not really."  
  
"What is this, then . . . 'really'?"  
  
"I don't know. I just wanted to talk. It's been a while." He stood up, brushing the green of his darkness and extracting the grass out of his teeth. "You still hate me. I don't want you to."  
  
Rogue caught herself sniffling and scowled to hide it, inhaling until she felt cold. Not the time. "I don't hate you."  
  
"Yes, you do. You've hated me since Cody. You've got a right, I guess, but . . . "  
  
"You scared me. And I could have handled it."  
  
"He would have killed you. You couldn't have stopped him, because he was . . . Cody. He was your friend. You . . . didn't want him to hate you."  
  
"I could have handled it," she pressed stubbornly, though now this was an old argument and they could have both recited it word for word, playing either part.  
  
He paused for a moment, then sighed, "Fine. You could have handled it. I still did what . . . I thought I had to. I still dream about it--I didn't want to kill him."  
  
"You ripped his throat out," she said coldly.  
  
"Just did what came naturally--like you absorbed Rahne."  
  
"I had no idea what she was."  
  
"Does it matter? Why is my murder worse than yours, huh?"  
  
This was old, too, both facing each other, drawing themselves up to full height, an odd, stilted kind of dance as they circled, meters apart.  
  
"You don't have to feel Cody in your head . . . he was just so much meat to you."  
  
"You think you know? You've never absorbed me, and you won't. Not to 'save my life,' and I wouldn't want it anyway. I know what you are."  
  
"I'm not a monster!"  
  
"Neither am I!"  
  
Pause. Just like a thousand times before. Dialogue a little different, but nothing else ever changed. Kurt began to laugh.  
  
"And that's that. Both monsters, then. Masochistic, eternally celibate, and trapped in the same old screams," he got to all fours, turned away from her, "the ghouls and dwarves even of our freakish community. Think we could at least stick together, I'm a devil, you're a hell, but whatever. Good night, Rogue."  
  
He vanished up a length of a tree and Rogue didn't bother following him. She sank down where she was and burst into tears.  
  
For whatever reason. It didn't matter. 


End file.
